First we spent a few days in Helsinki sightseeing, eating, entertaining ourselves. We walked literally kilometers each day, which implicitly must have been a preparation for our hiking trips in Lapland later on. In Helsinki (which, for some unknown reason, I keep writing as “Helsinky”) we met with our great friend Dan, from Illinois. Actually the whole trip has been planned around meeting with a friend from the States on 28th July, anyway.

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital of Finland, a town of over half a million. Helsinki looks to be a pleasant town to live in, because although a modern huge town, it offers recreation possibilities on its beaches, lakes, or in parks. We visited the Water tower fortress and had a great pizza in the restaurant there. There are some beautiful paintings in the gallery near the railway station called Ateneum. I don’t feel like describing each sightseeing object, so I will go on with this overview of our trip.

From Helsinki we took a cruise ship to Tallinn, Estonia. It is a pretty old town worth a visit. Reconstructions have been far from complete here, but the town breathed history in the old walls of its houses, churches and castles.

Our first stop on the way North was a camping site several kilometers from Rovaniemi. Although it hasn’t been dark yet, we came there around 11 p.m. and were freaking out from the amounts of mosquitoes of all kinds attacking us while we were building our tent. It was a horror. Actually as we drove to the camping site we just sat in the car for some 10 minutes and looked at millions of mosquitoes through the car’s windshield. Once we built the tent, hopped in and killed all the mosquitoes inside, we were fine.

Rovaniemi

Next day we visited the Santa Claus’ village North of Rovaniemi situated right on the artic circle. This little “place” receives thousands of letters from the children around the world writing to Santa Claus. You can have a look at an assortment of these letters in “Santa Claus’ Post Office”, where you can write postcards to be send automatically on Christmas from Santa. We also found Santa’s Office with him in there! Of course, he was posing there for photographs with children to support the place financially :-).

Kilpisjärvi

Our next stop was Kilpisjärvi. The road there was quite interesting. Many times, it seemed, we were the only car in that part of the world and the “part of the world” looked like the “end of the world”. Kilpisjärvi is a great starting point for hikes in the northernmost parts of Finland. Although we planned on doing the biggie to Halti, the highest mountain in Finland, we learned it would take way too much time and since there would be no way of getting a ride back from Halti, it would also be an extremely challenging undertaking. Our hike passed through the 3 corners point (point in which the border of Sweden, Norway and Finland meet). We continued our hike past this point and built our tent on a hill with a fabulous view of the never setting sun over snow covered mountains with lake mirroring it underneath.

Alta

The drive to Alta was enchanting. Numerous waterfalls on the way, beautiful views of the fjords and later the sea made us stop several times to take pictures. The rock carvings in Alta are included in UNESCO’s World Heritage list. These carvings were discovered only in 1973 and date back to 6200 to 2500 years ago. We camped on a campground just above these carvings with a beautiful view of the sea from the rock.

Hammerfest

Northernmost town in the world, this town of 10,000 satisfies its many visitors not just by a number of sights (town museum, modern Hammerfest church, Meridian memorial to commemorate the first project to measure the earth, Polar bear society, etc.), but by the calm Nordic atmosphere, views of the Arctic ocean from the Salen mountain with its Varden view tower overlooking the town. Don’t stop at the first campground at the entrance of the town, but go on to the center of it, and turn right as marked. There is a pleasant campground in front of the lake separated from the sea by the center of the town. It is a good idea to make a trip to Forsol, a small fishing village 9 km further north of Hammerfest. Trail through the ruins of dwellings from Stone Age leads a white sand beach from which we climbed a small fell overlooking the village with a good view of the ocean, the fjords and the slowly setting sun. We agreed this would be THE place for watching the northern lights in winter. Some day…

North cape

The drive was pretty, mostly when approaching North cape. The isle is connected with land by an under-the-sea tunnel. Going down this tunnel was quite an experience for me finding parallels to the film “Daylight” with Silvester Stallonne. Driving steeply down into the tunnel, you could feel the extremely moist air of the sea pushing heavily above you and one felt as if driving down to the middle of the earth.

North cape was beautiful. If you aren’t sure whether you want to visit it, do it! It offered some of the most spectacular views of the fjords, definitely the most beautiful view of the midnight sun and a rewarding hike to the northernmost point of Europe (since North cape is still a few meters behind). We camped just underneath the parking lot at North cape on a pretty flat grassy land. Don’t leave North cape without taking a walk around the fjords. And the hike… It is 8 km walk from the road, a 6km drive from North cape, and can be quite devastating if you try making it under 4 hours there and back.

Lapland

We drove back to Helsinki through the eastern part of Finland, i.e. through Ivalo, Inari, Kuopio, Savonlinna.

Our first stop was the Sami village in Karasjok constructed into a theme park with informative boards for tourists. In the middle of the park there is a traditional Sami restaurant. It involves several dining rooms built from wood around a fireplace with no chimney, chairs covered with reindeer skins, and logs replacing tables. The place was dimly lit in order to resemble the old Sami huts. The prices though were sky high, and later we realized this funky looking place is a chain of Rica hotels. I warn you not to try “reindeer broth”. For 60 marks, you’ll get a glass of colored reindeer flavored water.

In Ivalo we took a short, but enchanting walk in the woods to an old wooden church. We walked between the numerous perfectly calm lakes mirroring the fairy tale-like trees and moss. The only thing missing here was a real troll.

Then followed a long drive all the way south to Savonlinna. Since this was around 1200km it was at times dangerous to continue, but again, there wasn’t much choice since during the night all camping places were closed anyway. The land covered with mist hanging above the lake and moss looked like a vision from a horror book so no one felt like stopping near the road and taking a nap under the sky. Savonlinna was fun though. It is an example for how well a town can use its historical objects to attract visitors. Its medieval Olavinlinna Castle founded in 1475 is fantastically preserved and is used for ceremonies, weddings, meetings and cultural events. The rent for using the castle is strategically set low to keep the castle booked out. There are guided tours of the castle every hour. One of the interesting views is the view down the tower lavatory.

Bergen

It is a nice little tourist town with several attractions, but mostly famous as the center location for fjord excursions. YMCA/HI hostel there is located right in the center near the information office and the famous fisher market. I enjoyed taking a walk through the old part of the town situated around this market. There is a row of colorful old wooden houses along the bay — Bryggen-Unesco heritage, and if you walk around them, continue through the picturesque narrow streets at the foot of the 320 m hill where you can get by Bergen’s funicular Floibanen for 40 crowns.
Boat cruise through the fjords around Bergen Waterfalls into the fjord seen from the boat (around Bergen)

Many excursions to nearby fjords and glaciers start from Bergen. You can get all the information in the information center near the fisher market, but beware of its limited opening hours. We took a cruise to the longest and deepest (over 1.8 km!) Sogne fjord up to the Flam village in Aurlandsfjord. The cruise was boring the first 1 ½ hours, but then the sun came out and little fjords with picturesque villages presented themselves in full beauty. In Flam we took a walk to a waterfall and then continued by the famous Flambana railway impressing by many stunning views, which culminated by a stop at a huge and mighty Kjos waterfall. This railway completed in 1940’s is the steepest railway on normal tracks. In just 20 km its track rises by incredible 864 m, passing through 20 hand dug tunnels. I recommend all to keep their cameras ready during the one hour journey it takes the train to arrive at Myrdal, from which you can take connection back to Bergen.

Oslo

My girlfriend had a great idea of visiting Oslo’s 3D Imax theater. Next day we spent sightseeing the downtown, royal residence, theaters, harbor, Akershus medieval fortress and castle, and of course the unique and definitely worth visiting Vigeland Park with over 220 human statues.